In recent years, studies have found that breast microbiota differs between breast cancer tissue and normal breast tissue. Breast microbiota is closely related to the occurrence and development of breast cancer, and its mechanism includes affecting estrogen levels, lipid metabolism, immune regulation, and inflammatory response. Adjusting diet, rational use of antibiotics and oral probiotics can regulate breast microbiota, which is a new direction for the prevention and treatment of breast cancer.

Targeted therapy for breast cancer can significantly improve the prognosis, quality of life and survival of breast cancer patients, but the emergence of primary or acquired drug resistance will eventually lead to disease progression, recurrence or metastasis. Tumor microenvironment (TME) is a complex environment for breast cancer cells to survive. Breast cancer cells and TME are currently known to be a functional whole, and the crosstalk between them plays a key role in breast cancer progression and resistance to targeted therapies. Therefore, clarifying TME abnormalities is important to reveal the underlying mechanisms of targeted therapy resistance and to develop therapeutic strategies against targeted therapy-resistant malignancies.

Objective:To explore the characteristics and changes of cardiac injury with age in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and its clinical significance.Methods:A prospective cohort study was conducted. The 215 patients diagnosed with DMD in West China Second Hospital from January 2019 to November 2022 and aged from 6 to 18 years were enrolled. Their clinical data, myocardial injury markers, routine electrocardiogram, cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) and echocardiography were collected. The patients were divided into five age groups: 6-<8, 8-<10, 10-<12, 12-<14 and 14-18 years of age, and matched with healthy boys respectively. Independent sample t test or Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the clinical data and CMR indexes between DMD patients and controls in all age subgroups, and to compare the value of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) measured by echocardiography and CMR in each subgroup of DMD patitents. Pearson correlation analysis or Spearman correlation analysis was used to explore the relation between the CMR indexes and age in DMD patients. Results:A total of 215 patients with DMD (all male) and 122 healthy boys were included in the study. There were 75 DMD patients and 23 controls in 6-<8 years of age group, 77 DMD and 28 controls in 8-<10 years of age group, 39 DMD and 23 controls in 10-<12 years of age group, 10 DMD and 31 controls in the 12-<14 years of age group, and 14 DMD and 17 controls in 14-18 years of age group. In the DMD patients, the older the age, the lower the levels of creatine kinase (CK) and creatine kinase isoenzyme (CK-MB). In the 6-<8 years of age group, the CK level was 10 760 (7 800, 15 757) U/L, while in the group of 14-18 years of age, it was 2 369 (1 480, 6 944) U/L. As for CK-MB, it was (189±17) μg/L in the 6-<8 years of age group and (62±16) μg/L in the 14-18 years of age group. Cardiac troponin I remained unchanged in <12 years of age groups, but significantly increased in 12-<14 years of age group, reaching the highest value of 0.112 (0.006, 0.085) μg/L. In the DMD patients, the older the age, the higher the proportion of abnormal electrocardiogram (ECG). In the 6-<8 years of age group, the proportion is 29.3% (22/75), while in the 14-18 years of age group, it was 10/14. Correlation analysis showed that the left ventricular end-diastolic volume index was positively related with age ( r=0.18, P=0.015), and the left ventricular stroke volume index and cardiac output index were negatively related with age ( r=-0.34 and -0.31, respectively, both P<0.001). In the DMD patients, the older the age, the lower LVEF, with the LVEF decreasing to (49.3±3.1)% in the 14-18 years of age group. The LVEF of DMD cases was significantly lower than that of controls in the age subgroups of 8-<10, 10-<12, 12-<14 and 14-18 years of age groups ((57.9±5.2) % vs. (63.6±0.8)%, 60.7% (55.9%, 61.9%) vs. 63.7% (60.2%, 66.0%), 57.1% (51.8%, 63.4%) vs. 62.1 % (59.5%, 64.5)%, (49.3±3.1) % vs. (61.6±1.3)%, respectively; all P<0.01). In the DMD patients, the older the age, the higher the proportion of positive late gadolinium enhancement (LGE). In the 6-<8 years of age group, it was 22% (11/51), in the 12-<14 years of age group, it was 13/14, and in the 14-18 years of age group, all DMD showed positive LGE. The value of LVEF of DMD cases measured by echocardiography was significantly higher than that measured by CMR in 6-<8 years of age group and 8-<10 years of age group (63.2% (60.1%, 66.4%) vs. 59.1 % (55.4%, 62.9%), and (62.8±5.2) % vs. (57.9±5.2)%, all P<0.001). Conclusion:DMD patients develop cardiac injury in the early stage of the disease, and the incidence of cardiac damage gradually increases with both age and the progression of disease.

Humans ; Muscular Dystrophy, Duchenne/epidemiology* ; Prevalence ; Myocardium

Objective:To explore the effect of different HER2 expression levels and gene amplification on the efficacy of immunotherapy in metastatic urothelial carcinoma (UC).Methods:The clinical data of 77 patients with metastatic UC who received immunotherapy from June 2017 to April 2021 after failure to the previous chemotherapy were analyzed retrospectively, including 49 males and 28 females with the median age of 62 years. The primary tumors located in bladder in 28 cases (36.4%), renal pelvis in 25 cases (32.5%) and ureter in 24 cases (31.2%). The common metastatic sites included: lymph nodes (n = 45, 58.4%), lung (n = 40, 51.9%), bone (n = 20, 26.0%) and liver (n = 16, 20.8%). 27 patients with bladder UC received surgery on the primary tumors including radical cystectomy (n = 18), partial cystectomy (n = 4) and transurethral resection (n = 5). 43 patients with renal pelvis or ureteral UC received surgery on the primary tumors including radical nephroureterectomy (n = 38), local resection (n = 3) and palliative resection (n = 2). Postoperative intravesical chemotherapy was performed in 15 cases, adjuvant radiotherapy was performed in 6 cases. 3 patients who emerged postoperative bladder recurrence received local radiotherapy. 7 patients received radiotherapy and 1 case received microwave ablation to their metastatic sites. All patients had received first-line chemotherapy and 30 patients (40.0%) had received at least second-line treatment including 70 cases (90.9%) with platinum containing chemotherapy. All 77 patients received anti-PD-1 treatment. 38 patients received sequential regimen after failed to the anti-PD-1 therapy, including antibody-drug conjugate (n = 17), chemotherapy (n = 18) and chemotherapy combined with anti-angiogenesis drugs (n = 12). Immunohistochemical (IHC) staining was used to detect the expression level of HER2 protein in the tumor tissues (74 cases from primary tumors and 3 cases from metastatic tumors) obtained from the initial diagnosis. For patients with HER2 IHC (+ + ), the copy number (CN) of HER2 gene was detected by next-generation sequencing (NGS). HER2 copy number amplification [CN (+ )] was defined as CN ≥ 4, and HER2 copy number non-amplification [CN(-)] was defined as CN < 4. HER2 IHC (0) was defined as HER2 negative, IHC (+ ) or IHC (+ + ) / CN (-)was defined as HER2 low expression, while IHC (+ + ) / CN(+ ) and IHC (+ + + ) were defined as HER2 high expression. Chi-square test or Fisher exact test were used to evaluate the correlation between HER2 expression and objective response rate (ORR) after anti-PD-1 treatment. Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test were used to compare the differences of median progression free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) under different HER2 expression status.Results:All the 77 patients received a median of 11 (range: 2 - 45) doses of anti-PD-1 treatment with a median duration of treatment of 6.4 (range: 1.5 - 47.8) months and the ORR was 33.8% (26/77). The median follow-up time was 30.9 months. The overall median PFS time was 5.8 (95% CI: 3.0 - 8.6) months and the median OS time was 23.6 (95% CI: 8.5 - 38.7) months. HER2 IHC tests were performed in 77 patients. HER2 IHC levels of (0), (+ ), (+ + ) and (+ + + ) were found in 33 (42.9%), 19 (24.7%), 20 (26.0%) and 5 (6.5%) patients, respectively. HER2 copy number was detected in 20 patients with IHC (+ + ), while 1 CN(+ ) and 19 CN(-) were found. The ORR of HER2 negative, low expression and high expression patients were 42.4% (14/33) vs. 31.6% (12/38) vs. 0 (0/6) ( P = 0.08), respectively. The median PFS of the three groups were 11.0 months, 3.7 months and 1.8 months, respectively, with significant differences in overall and pairwise comparison( P=0.001). The median OS of patients with HER2 negative and low expression after anti-PD-1 treatment were 23.6 months and 22.7 months, respectively, while the median OS of patients with HER2 high expression had not been reached, with no significant difference in the overall comparison ( P=0.623). Conclusions:For patients with metastatic UC received anti-PD-1 treatment, the PFS of patients with high HER2 expression was significantly worse than that of patients with low or negative HER2 expression. HER2 expression may have potential value in predicting the efficacy of immunotherapy for metastatic UC who failed the previous chemotherapy, which needs further research.

[Abstract] Objective: To explore the expression patterns of melanoma lineage antigens and nuclear antigen Ki-67 and their correlations with survival in melanoma patients. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted to analyze the pathological data of melanoma patients treated at the Department of Melanoma, Peking University Cancer Hospital from February 2008 to August 2020, mainly including the expression patterns of melanoma lineage antigens (S-100, HMB-45, Melan-A) and Ki-67, demographics, clinical features and survival. The correlation between expression patterns of melanoma lineage antigens, Ki-67 and melanoma-specific survival (MSS) was analyzed. Results: In total, 603 patients were included in this study. The median follow-up time was 47.4 months. The positive rates of S-100, HMB, and Melan-A were 92.8%, 92.1% and 90.0%, respectively. The percentages of patients with melanoma lineage antigen scores (S-100, HMB-45 and Melan-A was scored each, as 1 when positive and 0 when negative) of 0, 1, 2, and 3 were 0.5%, 5.0%, 15.6%, and 78.8%, respectively. The percentages of patients with Ki-67 scores of 0, 1, 2, and 3 were 43.0%, 36.3%, 16.3%, and 4.5%, respectively. Ki-67 was highly expressed in mucosal and progressive melanomas. In a multivariate analysis, Ki-67 expression was an independent prognostic factor for poorer MSS (HR=1.506, 95%CI: 1.248-1.818, P<0.001) as the incidence of MSS event increased by 50% per 25% increase in Ki-67 expression, whereas there was no statistical correlation between melanoma lineage antigen expression and MSS (HR=0.991, 95%CI: 0.759-1.293, P=0.94). Conclusion: High expressions melanoma lineage antigens are ubiquitous in melanoma tissues, and Ki-67 is an independent prognostic factor for MSS.

Objective: To determine whether T1 mapping could monitor the dynamic changes of injury in myocardial infarction (MI) and be histologically validated. Materials and Methods: In 22 pigs, MI was induced by ligating the left anterior descending artery and they underwent serial cardiovascular magnetic resonance examinations with modified Look-Locker inversion T1 mapping and extracellular volume (ECV) computation in acute (within 24 hours, n = 22), subacute (7 days, n = 13), and chronic (3 months, n = 7) phases of MI. Masson’s trichrome staining was performed for histological ECV calculation. Myocardial native T1 and ECV were obtained by region of interest measurement in infarcted, peri-infarct, and remote myocardium. Results: Native T1 and ECV in peri-infarct myocardium differed from remote myocardium in acute (1181 ± 62 ms vs. 1113 ± 64 ms, p = 0.002; 24 ± 4% vs. 19 ± 4%, p = 0.031) and subacute phases (1264 ± 41 ms vs. 1171 ± 56 ms, p < 0.001; 27 ± 4% vs. 22 ± 2%, p = 0.009) but not in chronic phase (1157 ± 57 ms vs. 1120 ± 54 ms, p = 0.934; 23 ± 2% vs. 20 ± 1%, p = 0.109). From acute to chronic MI, infarcted native T1 peaked in subacute phase (1275 ± 63 ms vs. 1637 ± 123 ms vs. 1471 ± 98 ms, p < 0.001), while ECV progressively increased with time (35 ± 7% vs. 46 ± 6% vs. 52 ± 4%,p < 0.001). Native T1 correlated well with histological findings (R2 = 0.65 to 0.89, all p < 0.001) so did ECV (R2 = 0.73 to 0.94, all p < 0.001). Conclusion T1 mapping allows the quantitative assessment of injury in MI and the noninvasive monitoring of tissue injury evolution, which correlates well with histological findings.

Objective:To explore the prognostic value of PD-L1 expression level in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC).Methods:The clinicopathological and survival data of patients with mRCC in our hospital from Jan 2014 to Apr 2016 were retrospectively analyzed including 46 males and 15 females. The median age of these patients was 56 years(range: 29-75 years), with 41 patients ≤60 years and 20 patients >60 years. The baseline data before the systemic therapy showed 36 patients(59.0%)had 1 metastatic organ and 25 patients (41.0%) had equal or more than 2 organs to be metastasized. Among them, 17 patients(27.9%)had lung metastasis and 54 patients(88.5%)had liver metastasis. Abnormal baseline LDH occurred in 4 patients and 52 patients had normal LDH. Favorite and intermediate risk patients categorized by MSKCC risk stratification accounted for 59.6%(34 patients)and 40.4%(23 patients), respectively. Six patients(9.8%)experienced distant metastasis at initial diagnosis, with 4 of them undergoing primary site resection, and the other 55 patients undergoing radical nephrectomy. PD-L1 expression was detected by the immunohistochemical staining method. PD-L1 staining rate ≥1% detected on the tumor cell membrane was defined as positive expression. The correlation between PD-L1 expression and clinicopathological characteristics were compared. Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test were used to compare the differences about DFS and OS under different factors. Cox proportional hazards regression model is used for multivariable analysis of survival data.Results:The detailed pathological types of the 61 patients with renal cell carcinoma were classified as 53 clear cell carcinomas, 3 papillary carcinomas, 1 collecting duct carcinoma, 2 translocation renal cell carcinomas and 2 being unclassified. There were 4, 20, 19 and 9 patients categorized as WHO/ISUP nuclear grade 1, 2, 3 and 4, and 26, 12, 20 and 2 patients were categorized as T 1, T 2, T 3 and T 4 stage, respectively. Five patients had regional lymph node metastasis(N+), and the other 56 patients had no regional lymph node metastasis(N-). The numbers of patients categorized as stage Ⅰ, Ⅱ, Ⅲ and Ⅳ diseases according to TNM staging system were 20, 11, 21 and 8, respectively. The total PD-L1 positive rate was 24.6%(15/61). The corresponding PD-L1 expression rate of patients with WHO/ISUP nuclear grade 1-4 were 0(0 patient), 5.0%(1 patient), 31.6%(6 patients)and 44.4%(4 patients), respectively; With the increasing WHO/ISUP nuclear grade, the positive rate of PD-L1 gradually escalated with a linear correlation ( P=0.006). The PD-L1 expression of the normal and abnormal LDH group were 19.2%(10 patients)and 75.0%(3 patients), respectively, with significant difference( P=0.035). Univariate analysis of disease-free survival time(DFS)showed that the prognostic factors include PD-L1( P=0.045), age group( P=0.014), WHO/ISUP nuclear grade( P<0.001), T stage( P=0.015), N stage( P=0.026)and TNM stage( P=0.005). However multivariate analysis only suggested WHO/ISUP nuclear grade as the independent prognostic factors for DFS( HR=1.8, 95% CI 1.1-2.9, P=0.018). Either in univariate or multivariate analysis, PD-L1 was not a prognostic factor for overall survival (OS)of mRCC patients(univariate analysis: P=0.154; multivariate analysis: P=0.902). The independent prognostic factors of OS include WHO/ISUP nuclear grade( HR=3.0, 95% CI 1.1-8.0, P=0.033)and MSKCC risk stratification( HR=5.9, 95% CI 1.2-29.7, P=0.03). Conclusions:This study showed that the higher the WHO/ISUP nuclear grade of patients with mRCC, the higher the positive rate of PD-L1. PD-L1 expression was not the independent prognostic factor for DFS or OS of mRCC.

Objective: To determine whether T1 mapping could monitor the dynamic changes of injury in myocardial infarction (MI) and be histologically validated. Materials and Methods: In 22 pigs, MI was induced by ligating the left anterior descending artery and they underwent serial cardiovascular magnetic resonance examinations with modified Look-Locker inversion T1 mapping and extracellular volume (ECV) computation in acute (within 24 hours, n = 22), subacute (7 days, n = 13), and chronic (3 months, n = 7) phases of MI. Masson’s trichrome staining was performed for histological ECV calculation. Myocardial native T1 and ECV were obtained by region of interest measurement in infarcted, peri-infarct, and remote myocardium. Results: Native T1 and ECV in peri-infarct myocardium differed from remote myocardium in acute (1181 ± 62 ms vs. 1113 ± 64 ms, p = 0.002; 24 ± 4% vs. 19 ± 4%, p = 0.031) and subacute phases (1264 ± 41 ms vs. 1171 ± 56 ms, p < 0.001; 27 ± 4% vs. 22 ± 2%, p = 0.009) but not in chronic phase (1157 ± 57 ms vs. 1120 ± 54 ms, p = 0.934; 23 ± 2% vs. 20 ± 1%, p = 0.109). From acute to chronic MI, infarcted native T1 peaked in subacute phase (1275 ± 63 ms vs. 1637 ± 123 ms vs. 1471 ± 98 ms, p < 0.001), while ECV progressively increased with time (35 ± 7% vs. 46 ± 6% vs. 52 ± 4%,p < 0.001). Native T1 correlated well with histological findings (R2 = 0.65 to 0.89, all p < 0.001) so did ECV (R2 = 0.73 to 0.94, all p < 0.001). Conclusion T1 mapping allows the quantitative assessment of injury in MI and the noninvasive monitoring of tissue injury evolution, which correlates well with histological findings.

Objective To analyze the impact of canceling drug price markup policy on hospitalization expenses of urban public hospitals in Sichuan province and provide decision-making basis. Methods Data of hospitalization expenses of the top 50 diseases among inpatients discharged in 2016 and 2017 were collected, totaling 2 732 022 inpatient cases. Based on hospitalization expenses, these disease were divided into seven categories ( A-G) using dynamic clustering analysis, which represent respectively dominant diseases of different expense makeups, to compare such indicators as hospitalization expenses and composition ratios of these diseases before (2016) and after the reform (2017). Results The study found drastic changes among the medical expenses of different categories of dominant diseases. For example, per-hospitalization cost of categories E ( featuring high drug and examination expenses ) and G ( featuring balanced expenses distribution) diseases decreased since the reform, while the other categories rose instead. The proportion of drugs of different disease categories decreased to various extents. For example, category A ( high drug ratio of 5.60% ) and category E (5.15% ) diseases of which were found with the sharpest drop. Proportion of service expenses, on the other hand, rose to different extents. For example, the proportion of service expenses of all disease categories increased to varying degrees, among which category E (3.46% ), category F (3.37% ) and category D (3.36% ) accounted for the largest share of increase.Conclusions The reform is moving the cost structure of dominant diseases in Sichuan towards a rational level, yet with significant differences among disease categories. The authorities should target various categories to adjust their reimbursement policies, minimize financial burden on patients, strengthen their supervision on drug use and medical behavior, prevent such misbehaviors as the inducing demands and transferring drug markups.